AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
By Tony Attwood Updated 8 Feb with end of season friendlies added. Arsenal ended 1976 in sixth place, seven points behind the league leaders with three games in hand. They began the new year at home to the much disliked Leeds United on 3 January 1977 in a match in which Alan Hudson, the man who quite …
By Tony Attwood An index to the whole series of articles tracing Arsenal’s history through the 70s is given at the end of this piece. We left Arsenal in the last episode having won just two out of their six games in December, having scored two goals in their seven games. The league table at …
Read More “Arsenal in the 70s part 16. Jan to June 1976: the end of Mee”
By Tony Attwood The story so far… Arsenal in the 70s, part 1: the re-birth of the club. 1969/70 Arsenal in the 70s, part 2: preparing for the impossible. (July to December 1970) Arsenal in the 70s, part 3: The Golden Treble Arsenal in the 70s, part 4: What went so right in 1971, and …
Read More “Arsenal in the 70s, part 14. Jan to June 1975 – trying to send Tottenham down”
By Tony Attwood We left Arsenal 16th in the League at the end of December, 16 points off the leaders, Leeds, and only 7 points above the third relegation spot – newly created for this season, plus knocked out of the League cup by Tranmere. Some serious improvement was needed – and quickly. Unfortunately this …
Read More “Arsenal in the 70s Part 12: Jan to June 74. Farewell Bob, hello Liam.”
By Tony Attwood We ended the last piece on the 1970s at the end of 1972 with the league table looking like this P W D L F A GAv Pts 1 Liverpool 25 16 6 3 49 26 1.89 38 2 Arsenal 26 14 7 5 34 24 1.42 35 3 Leeds United 24 …
Arsène Wenger OBE is the longest serving and most successful Arsenal manager of all time. Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that he has singlehandedly created the second Arsenal Golden Age, while at the same time revolutionising English top division football. The first Arsenal Golden Age ran of course from 1930 to 1953, encompassing the careers …
Last major update of this file: 3 July 2021 ? June 1892: Alf Singleton and Henry Stewart surprisingly failed to get elected to the committee running Royal Arsenal – the first sign of the split within the club that ultimately led to the formation of professional Woolwich Arsenal and amateur Royal Ordnance Factories as …
Emmanuel Laurent “Manu” Petit was born 22 September 1970 and was one of the early classic signings by Arsène Wenger, who brought Petit from his earlier French club, Monaco. Petit was born in Dieppe and was signed by Arsène Wenger at the age of 18 and soon became a regular player in the midfield. By …
3 June 1939 Jimmy James Tullis Logie was signed from Lochore Welfare. And what a time to sign – within 3 months we were at war with Germany, and Jimmy’s playing career was put on hold. But despite that he played 296 league games, scoring 68 goals and 30 cup games with 8 goals. Jimmy …
For details our Free Video Collection, and the “Arsenal Day by Day” series please see the notes below the article By Tony Attwood Herbert Chapman was manager of Leeds City of Division II when the first world war broke out and having taken up a job outside of football for the duration, he returned to …
Read More “1 February 1921: Herbert Chapman returns to football”
I think we have covered every day of the year in this chart – except rather obviously 1 January. But we do have an article for that day and it will be published on 1st January. Meanwhile here are the rest of the tales January 1 January 1988: Tony Adams became Arsenal captain for a …
The list of the 270+ videos we have gathered commemorating events on individual days are to be found via this link. We are also developing our video collection series in which we are gathering together the best videos we have against each club we have played in recent years – and adding some new ones to the …
Read More “The day Herbert Chapman took up his job at Arsenal”
The Arsenal in the Summer series looks at what has happened to the club during the summer months, year on year. Over 60 seasons have been covered in this series, and there is a full index here. It is extraordinary how Arsenal’s summers have changed and evolved over time and I do hope you find …
Read More “Arsenal in the summer 2017: the signing of Lacazette”
I guess that most people who look at any sort of anniversary files take a particular interest in what happened on their birthday. I’m no exception, and today is my birthday, which I am delighted to share with this being the date of the first ever AGM of Woolwich Arsenal FC – as the …
Read More “Arsenal’s first AGM, a great benefactor passes way, Chapman signs all on this day”
By Tony Attwood In our last episode we saw Arsenal manager Leslie Knighton either resign or be sacked from Arsenal immediately the 1924/5 season was over, and then rather peculiarly seemingly work out two week’s notice. During that time an advertisement appeared in Athletic News advertising the post of manager at Arsenal. We also considered …
Read More “When Arsenal’s 15 year plan to become the biggest club in the league, came to fruition.”
The Arsenal Anniversary Files Below are the Arsenal (and occasionally one or two non-Arsenal) anniversaries for today taken from the complete files of over 6000 Arsenal anniversaries which appear on the Arsenal History Society website. An index to the Anniversary files can be found in the left column of this site under “Pages” The current …
Read More “Woolwich Arsenal begins, Chapman arrives, our first benefactor dies”
by Tony Attwood June 1921 was not exactly a time of fun and laughter in the UK. In politics the Parliament of Northern Ireland assembled for the first time as the Irish war continued. In a Westminster by-election and “Anti-Waste” candidate (meaning against any government involvement in industrial redevelopment, supporting the poor etc) won the …
Read More “Why did Arsenal manager Knighton turn down Man City but not buy players? Summer of 1921.”
By Tony Attwood In the last article we reached the transfer of Dick Roose to Arsenal while Arsenal struggled to recapture the form that led to a mid table finish in 1910/11. The arrival of Dick Roose in 1912 was a masterstroke by Norris, putting Woolwich Arsenal back on the back pages, as it were. The …
Read More “Henry Norris at the Arsenal 11: 1912 and Arsenal plan to move away from Plumstead”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal had had a run of 11 games without defeat at the end of the 1910/11, and an overall increase in attendances of almost 10% over the previous season. This was not enough to scoop back the huge losses in crowd numbers Arsenal had suffered from their heyday when they were the …
Read More “Henry Norris at the Arsenal part 10: the summer and autumn of 1911”
I have recently been writing about Arsenal’s summers – simply because no one seems to have gathered the summer pre and post season campaigns and signings together before. But I have had several comments to the effect that it would be even better if a similar style could be used but for the whole season …
Read More “The end of Knighton, Herbert Chapman’s arrival, the truth about “WM” and a new club high”
By Tony Attwood Before Chapman arrived Defeat to Liverpool on 3 January 1925 started a run of 6 consecutive defeats during which Arsenal scored 2 goals. Worse, in utter desperation on 14 January 1925 the Arsenal manager started experimenting by giving drugs to the Arsenal players – as he revealed in his later memoires. On …
Read More “1925: Arsenal’s pre-season. The arrival of Chapman”
by Tony Attwood I started this series of articles about Arsenal’s pre-season campaigns simply because I couldn’t find a comprehensive record anywhere else and I kept wanted to check details. I could see the results of friendlies, of course, and separately the transfers, but no overall view of what happened in each pre-season. But now, …
By Tony Attwood Oh the horrors of being an Arsenal supporter in the early 1980s! 1982/3 was part of the era of Liverpool dominance – they won the European Cup, League Cup and the First Division. It was also the era in which all players who qualified to play for England played in England. And …
Read More “1983 pre season: the horrors of being an Arsenal supporter”
. James Bigden was born in the West Ham region of London in 1880 and played first for Gravesend United before joining West Ham in 1901 (sorry I don’t have the date), with whom he was celebrated as a key player, making 91 appearances and scoring 5 goals. West Ham at the time were a …
I must admit I have a soft spot for Charlie Nicholas. Maybe because I sat next to him once when he was out of favour at Arsenal and he just took a regular seat in the stand. He was charming. Maybe because he has resolutely supported Arsene Wenger and Arsenal when all the other ex-Arsenal …
